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Robert Reid

Portrait of Mrs. Robert Reid

oil on canvas

17 x 14 in.

Gift of Mr. and Mrs. John G. Raugh, Sr.

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Robert Reid was born in Stockbridge, Massachusetts and studied at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts School, the Art Students League in New York and at the Académie Julian in Paris. After three years in France, Reid settled in New York.  His subjects included  landscapes, figures, still-lifes and murals painted in an impressionist manner. Reid was one of the founding members of The Ten American Painters, a group of impressionists who rebelled against academic traditions. He supported himself by painting portraits until he received his first mural commission decorating one of the eight entrance pavilion domes in the Liberal Arts Building for the 1893 World’s Columbian Exhibition in Chicago.  He later received numerous mural commissions.  In the early 1920s, Reid moved to Colorado Springs and taught at Broadmoor Academy during which time he concentrated on portraiture.

This likeness of Reid’s wife, exhibits the artist’s impressionist point of view.  With a keen sensitivity to the behavior of sunlight, shadow, and colored reflections, Reid used freely brushed strokes to bathe his subject in rich pastel hues.  Reid’s distinctive style is best seen in his idealized figures of women which are the hallmark of his easel painting.

Reference

William Gerdts.  Ten American Painters, New York: Spanierman Gallery, 1990. ISBN-13: 978-0945936077